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Thursday, February 28, 2013

Liz Crowe Shares "Turkish Delights"

Today Liz is talking about her big, gorgeous package
deal of erotic-exotic novels “Turkish
Delights” and offering a contest. As if a generous contest wasn’t enough, guess
what? For a limited time…

TURKISH DELIGHTS is FREE! Details at the bottom of this blog so please
read on.

Liz Crowe:

One Time, in Istanbul….

I was driving out to my kids’ school (Istanbul International
School, one of the oldest International Baccalaureate schools in the
world). It is located waaaay outside of
the main part of the city, a solid hour by bus, a little less by car. We were
on our way out of the country, headed next to England after a couple of years
in Turkey. It was end of school party
day and I had agreed to chaperone said event.

I was driving myself for a change (we had a driver for most
of the time we were there but he had found a new gig and since we were out of
our flat and in a hotel it was “no big deal.”)

I did not have any ID on me other than my Michigan driver’s
license and the paper declaring me OK TO DRIVE IN EUROPE because my spouse’s
company had dropped the ball a little and not gotten our exit Visas and what
not on time so they had my passport and my little “OK TO LIVE IN TURKEY”
mini-passport. No big deal.

As I passed a gated neighborhood of gigantic homes I saw a
roadblock. “No problem,” I thought as I reached for my purse and waited my turn
and realized….I had no ID other than my Michigan and International driving
licenses….Holy Sh*T Balls.

Another mom was ahead of me, and saw that I got stopped and
asked to exit my vehicle by an adorable young man in the uniform of the Turkish
Gendarme, a sort of state police like
entity responsible for law enforcement outside the city limits. He was
obviously nervous, but carrying a semi automatic weapon as they are wont to do
in that country. I was used to that. But
my stress level notched up. It was already high. If you have ever moved between
countries with 3 kids and a spouse who is more or less already onto his next
gig in that next country, leaving you to deal with everything else, well, you
feel my pain. The other mom had a
driver, thank the lord, and he helped, but only a little. Those uniformed dudes
were determined that I was Not Where I was Supposed To Be that day.

The short version of this story is that after I got the
human resources director on the phone, told him to get somebody out to me, as I
sat in the gendarme office in god-knows-where sipping tea and glaring at the
jerk who was being a jerk to me. “Right fucking now” I think were my exact
words…we were all cleared up. BUT I had a meltdown on the side of the road and
will someday find the words describe the look in the cute kid’s eyes when I did
that and he shot a look of terror to his superior (the Jerky one) that was
something along the lines of “Let’s let
her go. She’s obviously insane. And American. And she scares me.”

I have a scene in The Diplomat’s Daughter that I channeled
some of this experience into. The Turkish law enforcement authorities (a.k.a.
The Military) are a no-nonsense bunch. When a few of them come to tell Vivian
Kinkaid Deniz that the son she thought killed in a terrorist attack 2 years
prior was actually held hostage and tortured for that period of time, and he
had escaped on his own but was missing and now presumed dead. Although she is fluent in Turkish, having
been married to a Turkish man for decades and lived in Istanbul for that
period, she loses it in English all over them.

I loved my time in Turkey, cute and jerk-ish Gendarme aside.
And now that incident even sounds funny to me in hindsight. It’s a crazy, frustrating place but
beautiful, full of history, and amazing at the same time.

I hope you get a chance to read my series that I set there,
Turkish Delights, available as an ebook bundle and in print under one cover.

Cheers

Want a little more? Here’s a blurb and excerpt from The
Turkish Delights Series:

For the print anthology:

A young American woman comes face to face with
her destiny in Istanbul in the 1960's and an epic dynasty is born.

When Vivian Kinkaid turns around in her college
classroom and makes eye contact with a man who was once her forbidden childhood
friend, her life is changed forever.

A sweeping saga of family, love, loss and
recovery—The Turkish Delight series begins with a special sort of
magic. Then Madame Eve works her miracles for the Deniz family, but
even she can’t overcome the harsh realities that force this Turkish/American
family all to deal with tragedy when one of their own is ripped from their
close-knit circle.

“The Turks” opens with best-selling classic
romance for the ages. Then ends with a thrilling novella that brings all
the players back together. Set in Istanbul, Las Vegas, and Southern
California, The Turkish Delights series has it all—heat, heart, intrigue and a
deep, family connection that transcends all barriers.

The Diplomat's Daughter

Turkish Delights

Blue Cruise

Tulip Princess

Flower Passage

Individual Blurbs for the books:

The Diplomat’s Daughter:

When Vivian Kincaid's
eyes meet those of a hunky local at the Turkish university her father forces
her to attend, it only takes her a split second to recognize her childhood
friend. Levent Deniz was the servant boy who taught her to run the streets of
Istanbul years before, giving outlet to her wild streak even as a child.

Now face-to-face once
again as adults, the only thing standing between them and happiness is her
father. The newly appointed Consul General for the United States has other
plans for his only daughter. Ones that do not include a former servant, now
successful entrepreneur and businessman. He will do everything in his power to
keep them apart.

The Diplomat's Daughter
is set in 1960s Istanbul and tells the story of pre-destiny, passion and the
rebellious power of true love.

Turkish Delights (1NightStand)

The fifteen year age
difference between Elle Kensington, expatriate American executive and Emre
Demir, son of Istanbul's most successful businessmen, has not kept them from
becoming fast friends as they toured Istanbul together. But the time has come
for him to return to the U.S. to finish his master's degree, and she has just
been named CEO of the pharmaceutical company that brought her to Turkey in the
first place. Elle adores her adopted country, and is alarmed to find herself
falling in love with the young man who's been her impromptu guide for the last
few months.

She knows they can never
be. She will return home to California within a month, leaving behind all she
loves about the ancient city. In a rare fit of spontaneity, Elle has contracted
with Madame Eve's 1Night Stand dating service, hoping to find a way to forget the
dark, handsome young man who has captured her heart. Little does she know what
awaits her in the ancient recesses of the Ottoman palace turned luxury hotel
under the hands of her one-night stand masseur.

Blue Cruise (1NightStand,
m/m)

Caleb and Tarkan were
an odd couple—men from two different cultures—so in love, they were determined
to overcome any obstacles. But fate had different plans for Tarkan. Shattered
and unable to function a full two years after tragedy strikes, Caleb faces the
hollow shell that is his life.

Adem Broussard is happy
enough, as owner and chef of his restaurant on the Turkish southern coast. But
a tall, American Adonis he saw once, years ago on a Turkish Blue Cruise haunts
his most erotic dreams, and he hopes contracting Madame Eve's 1NightStand
service for an unconventional date will help him forget.

When Caleb caves in to
his friend Elle's insistence that he return to Turkey and exorcise some of the
demons that haunt him, he reluctantly climbs on board a private yacht for a
special 1Night Stand Blue Cruise. There he comes face to face with the man who
remembers him well…and helps him heal.

Tulip Princess
(1NightStand, BDSM)

Lale Deniz was always
prone to wildness. But when her family is ripped apart at the seams, she becomes
more reckless than ever. Desperate to stop her self-destructive slide, her
parents step in and send her to America to live with her brother, Emre. Just
the chance, she thinks, to escape the tragedy suffusing her Istanbul home.

Andreas Michos, Greek
former NFL star, the recently divorced athletic director at UNLV, floats
through life seeking fulfillment. He has reason to doubt his own abilities as a
natural Dom and has given up finding his perfect mate. Until he agrees to a
1Night Stand.

Set against a backdrop of
ancient cultural clashes and Mediterranean family dynamics, Lale and Andreas
meet in Las Vegas at the Castillo resort for their date. But it seems Madame
Eve and destiny will both fail this time, unless Lale and Andreas are willing
to relinquish enough control to discover what happiness can be found inside the
soul of the other. Will stubbornness keep them from connecting, or can they let
go long enough to heal?

Flower Passage (final
novella, m/m/m)

What would you do if
the lover, brother, son, and friend you thought you'd lost forever was returned
to you?

Brutally battered,
emotionally and physically for the past two years, Tarkan Deniz has escaped his
captors. When the Deniz family discovers the shocking truth they rally and do
everything in their power to bring him back safely. But all have been affected
by the tragedy of his loss and must come to terms with the new reality, each in
their own way.

When Happily Ever After
seems like a nightmare...one man can bring healing to all, but will he ever be
the same man again?

Flower Passage is a story
of love lost and regained, even if it takes a slightly different form than
before.

Here’s a bit about Liz:

Microbrewery owner, best-selling author, beer blogger and
journalist, mom of three teenagers, and soccer fan, Liz lives in the great
Midwest, in a major college town. Years
of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as an ex-pat
trailing spouse, plus making her way in a world of men (i.e. the beer industry),
has prepped her for life as erotic romance author.

When she isn't sweating inventory and sales figures for the
brewery, she can be found writing, editing or sweating promotional efforts for
her latest publications.

Her groundbreaking fiction subgenre, “Romance for Real
Life,” has gained thousands of fans and followers who are interested less in
the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens After?”)

Her beer blog a2beerwench.com is nationally recognized for
its insider yet outsider views on the craft beer industry. Her books are set in
the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch and in high-powered
real estate offices. Don’t ask her for
anything “like” a Budweiser or risk painful injury.

15 comments:

I agree Katalina! These books are wonderful! Wow, Liz, that's a scary story and probably why I don't get out of the country. I admire you and my sister who lived in Japan for three years. It sounds exciting but I imagine the headaches all too well!

Hello Jessica, one of the things that stands out to me about Liz's writing is that her voice is so clear. This is who she is uncensored and passionate. It's refreshing in a genre that often steers toward the generic.

Liz, your real life stories always amaze me...and you're still the sane author we know and love today! Of course, we know what a talented author you are...and I'd say you have tons of experienced research behind you when you write.